Letter: Christianity

Monday

What is it in religion, particularly Christianity that strikes such fear in the heart of our government and the hearts of so many others who find it credible to believe in almost anything else?

What is it in religion, particularly Christianity that strikes such fear in the heart of our government and the hearts of so many others who find it credible to believe in almost anything else?

However, the fear was not always present. After an extensive study of historical documentation, the Supreme Court, in 1892, decided that, “There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading in them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons. They are organic utterances. They speak the voice of the entire people. This is a religious people … this is a Christian nation.” John Adams thought our government inadequate without the support of healthy religious belief when he said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Christianity does not compel one to accept it. There is a marked distinction between accepting and practicing an ideology and the toleration of its acceptance and participation by others. Is it the consideration that there may be someone greater than themselves that incites in them such insecurity? Is it the principles of Christianity that the fearful object to, or is it Christianity badly practiced that makes the fearful scurry for the battlements? I submit that Christianity has too often been practiced badly and anything badly practiced is subject to great fault being found in it. It is good to distinguish between a thing badly practiced and one practiced well. We have no particular right to not hear a classical piece of music played badly but we do have a right to leave from the presence of it. It is important, too, that we know enough of the original composition of that music to know that it is played badly. We will witness many things badly practiced but that does not mean that the intent and original form of the thing is bad. Why is it not enough to ideologically disagree and tolerate as Thomas Jefferson suggested; “Render to everyone the liberty to worship a Creator or no creator in the way the believer thinks most agreeable to his reasoning.”

Fundamentally, what is there to fear in a religion centered on a redeemer who never owned personal property, held public office, led an army, resisted the government, led an uprising or incited followers to any wrong doing? True enough all these things have been done in badly practicing his teachings but none were the intentions of his teachings.

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